Fairytales
by rubyshards
Summary: SeiferxSquall, SquallxRinoa. AU. The fairytale of the Lionhearted Knight, the Red Knight, and the Spring Witch. For the themes 'fire' and 'ice.'


To the far north of the Frozen Lands, there was a beautiful statue, set up upon a pillar of stone that none could climb or surpass, surrounded by a snow covered forest of dark evergreens whose fingers reached up around the statue. Many had tried to climb this pillar, had tried to reach the icicle statue that glitter at the top, but none had managed to survive the chill that bit down upon them from the skies, and all had failed.

The statue, as legend says, is no statue at all. A myth of a knight, loved by his land, a true warrior, and his mistress, as beautiful young Sorceress, the Spring Witch, is laced around this statue, and all who have seen the pillar know the tales of the myth.

Long ago, the Lionhearted Knight overthrew the Winter Sorceress. He rose against her with a heavenly sapphire blade that only he could wield, and struck her down in her time of power and oppression against the people of the land. He was regarded as a hero, known throughout the world, and was honored as the Savior to them all.

He was a man of noble upbringing, cold and hard and well trained. He was silent, yet powerful, and many called him the Ice Prince, for he had bonded with the Ice Queen as none had ever been able to do before. He was a True Knight, and all loved him and followed his lead, for he was the Hero of their time, the Savior of their world.

But as there are heroes, there are also villains. The Winter Sorceress descended from the world with a final curse uttered beneath her dying breath, aimed at the one who had shed her blood and caused her downfall.

"He is like the ice, for he is cold and isolated from the rest - none shall be able to melt the frost that befalls him, and my revenge will be completed."

And the Winter Sorceress passed from the world, and all rejoiced.

The Spring Witch received the powers of the Winter Sorceress, and grew to be a lovely Sorceress, beloved throughout the land for her innocence and beauty, for the glory with which she carried herself. As his duty, the Lionhearted One protected the Spring Witch, and she fell madly in love with him, for he was all that she could have ever dreamed of.

They lived in prosperity and happiness.

But the Winter Sorceress's spell finally struck the Lionhearted Knight, one year after the words had left the Her lips.

The Lionhearted Knight turned to ice - was frozen solid like the cold nature that he carried throughout his life in a beautiful shimmer of frost that covered his pale flesh and ice-storm eyes.

The Spring Witch tried for many days to reverse the spell that the Winter Sorceress had cast upon her Knight, but to no avail. The power the Spring Witch had been given was not strong enough, and the spell could not be broken.

The people mourned for the lose of their Savior, for all feared that the Knight would never reawaken again, for even the Spring Witch, the only Sorceress left in the world, could not free her Knight from his confinement.In an effort to protect the Knight from harm, the Spring Witch locked him away in the Frozen Lands in the north, upon a large pillar that stretched high up toward the sky, surrounded by impassable snow, for only if one were strong enough to travel through the Frozen world would one possess the power to free the Lionhearted Knight from his imprisonment.

There he stayed, upon the pillar that rose to the north, for decades, and the Spring Witch died of a sickness of the heart, for she had lost all hope that her Knight would ever be freed of his prison.

The world seemed bleak now that the Savior had been trapped, and all surrendered to the Darkness that befell the land.

Until one day, when Everything became so bleak that people even forgot what the color of the sky was like, when a new Knight arose in the land.

Many people knew this Knight, and feared him, for he had been the Knight of the Winter Sorceress, and many did not believe his words, and feared that he would bring the Winter Sorceress back into power.

The Knight of the Winter Sorceress was the opposite of the Lionhearted Knight in every way - he was fire and passion, impulse and pride, and many knew him as the Red Knight, the one beloved by flame.

The Red Knight made an oath to the people, to gain their trust.

"I will go to the Frozen Lands of the north, and I will awaken the Lionhearted One."

And he set off, taking only the clothing on his back and the weapon that he had wielded for so long - a weapon made by the same Blacksmith as the Lionhearted One's sword, for the Red Knight and the Lionhearted One had been companions, in a time long passed.

No one heard from the Red Knight for nearly a year, and again hope dwindled from the people, and fear swept back into the hearts of the ones without a leader.

It is said that during his journey, the Red Knight crossed many frozen lands, fought against Ice Demons that rose from the very mounds beneath his feet, that he battled against the Ice Queen who protected the Lionhearted One, the Ice Prince, at the very top of the pillar, that he fought against impossible chill and climbed to the very top of the pillar with his own strength and the Fire that coursed through him as his only guide.

When the Red Knight reached the very top of the pillar, after a year of hard travels and perilous dangers, he found the Lionhearted One awaiting him, frozen in a crust of ice that glittered in the dim light of the eternal storm. He was gorgeous, wrapped in frozen blue, and his eyes, the color of ice, glittered with a life beneath the frost that held him still, and the snow fell upon him and at his feet, kissing his blue tinted skin and landing on his lips from which no breath left.

The Red Knight walked to the statue, dropped his weapon at his side and drew close to the Ice Prison that the Lionhearted One was trapped in, and touched his hands to the Lionhearted One's hands, his forehead to the Lionhearted One's forehead, and the ice melted away, slid in cool water to the pillar, and the spell was broken.

And the eternal storm cleared, and the Lionhearted One, the Ice Prince, smiled at the Red Knight who had set him free, for he had proved himself to the land, and the Winter Sorceress had finally faded from the world.

Or so the story is told.


End file.
